Follow Friday: Florida Man, the World’s Worst Superhero

The state of Florida is one of the Internet’s great friends, especially as it is filtered through the greasy lens of Fark.com’s Florida tag. Next to those signature green block letters (with an orange for an O), the nation’s strangest, most twisted dramas play out via links to local news reports—this week alone they described tampon thieves, Jesus sightings in Corona cases, and a sheriff’s deputy who lives large even after taking a bullet to the head.

Their surreal, colorful world could certainly use a superhero, and now they have one, thanks to Twitter. But @_FloridaMan is not the hero the Sunshine State needs. Painted with ghoulish black makeup, Florida Man and his exploits too closely mirror the local everyman: robbing a pet store with a syringe, getting arrested for giving too many wedgies. And that’s just the beginning:

Even his dedicated Twitter account describes him as the “world’s worst superhero.”

Who is Florida Man, really? A cursory search of the 99 Twitter accounts followed in his early hours suggest he may have a day job similar to Clark Kent’s, just possibly at BuzzFeed. The avatar, by the way, belongs to Ricky Lee Kalichun, and is our only complaint about the Twitter feed. Kalichun is the Evansville, Ind. man arrested last year after painting his face and attacking a neighbor with a sword. Great pic, but shouldn’t it be a local?

That aside, we can never have enough ways to take Florida’s crazy pulse, so we welcome Florida Man to the fray. We expect he’ll keep busy.